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"Music may achieve the highest of all mission: she may be a bond between nations, races, and states, who are strangers in many ways; she may unite what is disunited and bring peace to what is hostile."

Dr. Max Bendiner

"Legyen a zene mindenkié!"

"Let the music be everybody's!"

Kodály Zoltán

"A zene az emberiség univerzális nyelve."

“Music is the universal language of mankind”

Longfellow

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This album is like an exotic trip through the Arabian desert, and reminiscent of the glory days Led Zeppelin.
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, former guitarist and singer for Led Zeppelin, respectively, take the listener on a journey with the use of foreign musicians and instruments including Egyptian bamboo flutes, mandolins, and bodhrans.

Much of the music on "No Quarter" has a Middle-Eastern feel to it. Page and Plant enlist the help of the London Metropolitan Orchestra and an Egyptian ensemble to create the magnificent and dreamy sound of Middle-Eastern music mixed with Western rock. The result is fabulous.

What I am most blown away with is how different many of the songs sound. Some, such as "Thank You" and "Gallows Pole," are basically the same as the Zeppelin classics. Many, however, sound as if they went in for plastic surgery. My favorite example is the first song on the album, "Nobody's Fault But Mine." I always thought the original Led Zeppelin version was alright, but when I heard Page and Plant's version, I was pleasantly surprised. It is slower,more beautiful, and, in my opinion, better than the original.
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant's "No Quarter" captures the mystery, power and life of music it self.
"No Quarter" is a breath of fresh air in a world of recycled music.

VulgarGrad bring you a highly alcoholic and volatile blend of the old songs of the Russian thieves (called blatnie pesny or blatnyak), along with punk classics of the Perestroika era and a strong dose of contemporary St. Petersburg swearing ska. The band delivers this music with style, raucous menace, stripy shirts and a smattering of grim smiles (very important).

Legend of stage and screen, Jacek Koman (Children of Men, Moulin Rouge, Romulus My Father, Australia) is the genial but vengeful front man who roars with the voice of a man betrayed, and he is backed by a gang of Australia's most illustrious ex-cons drawn from bands such as The Spaghetti Western Experience, The Blue Grassy Knoll, Zulya and the Children of the Underground, Croque Monsieur, Blue Drag, and the Five Angry Men. The Line-up is guitar, drums, trombone, trumpet, accordion, and watch out for the largest, most triangular instrument of them all, the mighty contrabass balalaika.

"This album is an absolute hoot! The album title (read with tongue firmly planted in cheek) says it all really – think Tom Waits in Russian meets Waiting For Guiness or any of that ilk. VulgarGrad are a Melbourne-based outfit featuring bassist Andrew Tanner (Zulya’s Children Of The Underground) on contrabass balalaika, with an able crew of guitar, horns & accordion, and at the helm the extraordinary guttural vocals of Jacek Koman.

All the songs are sung in Russian, delivered with all the morose hilarity we love from the Eastern Bloc proletariat, and with titles like ‘Alkoholik’, ‘Why Did The Aborigines Eat Captain Cook’ and ‘Anarchy Is Our Mother’ you can probably assume this is not music to be bourgeois to. It swings, stutters, stumbles and growls, veering and careering from cabaret cheese to jazz groove to carny to ska. While the musicians are clearly seasoned (or pickled), they play with shambolic abandon, often threatening to slide off the vodka-soaked table and into a puddle on the floor, with Koman’s growl providing enough rust to prevent proceedings from ever getting too slick. A fat horn section slithers & seesaws with well-oiled grunt, peppered with tasteful sprinklings of Nara Demasson’s jazzy guitar and what I assume is Svetlana Bunic’s MIDI accordion sounding like xylophone, hammond organ, flute and other sundry effects.

Superlatives aside, this is a great slab of music – energetic & fun, well-played and imminently danceable, although possibly even better to get very drunk and hurtle to."

The group Makám is founded in 1984 in Budapest. A group with many different groups, but always manages Zoltán Krulik special singers to win.Singers with a more or less the same as quality and tembre: Bognár Szilvia , Palya Bea , Ági Szalóki and crystal clear Iren Lovász . The daughter of Krulik, Eszter Krulik plays on several CDs.Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. She studied violin at Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. After the debut album the band gets some notoriety through the movie's Utcazeneszek Zolnai Pál (Buskers at a flea market). Now they have more than "a dozen CDs, always with a haunting quality.

Makám arrived a new turning point in it's carreer with this album - like ten years ago, when the instrumental period has changed to a vocal period. Yanna Yova focuses on todays atmosphere, musical movements and the toughts of the modern city living human being.

Maddy Prior has established herself, by dint of both talent and time, as one of the leading female singers in British folk (and folk-rock). Born in St. Albans, outside London, she developed an interest in traditional English music as a teenager and through friends, found her way to the treasure trove of material at Cecil Sharpe House and also to Ewan MacColl, the de facto leader of the folk revival. In the late '60s, she met Tim Hart, an accomplished singer and instrumentalist, and together they recorded three albums which made little impact at the time, not even setting the folk clubs buzzing. However, they had played some folk festivals, including Keele, where they met Fairport Convention bassist Ashley Hutchings, who was about to form a new band. Prior and Hart became part of the ensemble known as Steeleye Span, who would become an ongoing institution of British folk-rock, with Prior as one of its constants -- she even married Rick Kemp, the bass player who replaced Hutchings.

In 1976, she teamed with another young folk singer, June Tabor, under the Silly Sisters moniker, to record the first of what would be two albums, also remaining with Steeleye until the group officially disbanded in 1978. After that, she embarked on her solo career, her debut, Woman in the Wings, being produced by Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson. She also began another career, as the mother of two children, but still joined a reunited Steeleye in 1980, continuing to juggle band and solo work and evening forming her own group, the Carnival Band, who've supported her on record and tour since 1987. When Prior experienced some voice problems in 1993, Gay Woods, who also been an original Steeleye vocalist, rejoined the band. Prior continued to record more frequently alone, including the albums Year, Flesh and Blood, and Ravenchild, many of which were concept records, before finally leaving Steeleye Span in 2000 to concentrate purely on solo work.

"Subtitled "A Cure for all Melancholy", this CD might just as easily be titled "Seventeenth Century Golden Party Greats"! Andy Watts leads the Carnival band on another musical adventure, mixing period and modern, even electric, instruments, but the Carnival Band still maintains an authentic spirit. Maddy Prior meets the challenge of singing in differing styles with her usual ability and grace.

The band bursts into The Prodigal's Resolution with the abandon of an Elizabethan whoopee band. It continues with a set of Playford Dances, starting with pipes alone, and building up to a folk-rock band. The Jovial Begger - yes, spelt "er" the insert insists - sounds like early jug band music!

There are pieces which are more simple. Maddy Prior has a showcase in Never Weatherbeaten Saile, with a plain lute backing, and period instruments accompany The World is Turned Upside Down throughout. Maddy shares in the two unaccompanied songs, "A Northern Catch" and "A Round of Three Country Dances in One".

There are also some more modern tempos - The Leathern Bottel has a hypnotic rhythm with electric bass and rich Hammond organ. Now O Now I Needs Must Part has the charm of a gentle Country and Western waltz, introducing strains of Somewhere Along the Road. Finally, Old Simon the King starts off sedately, but suddenly electric guitar and saxophone transform the beat into ska. This fusion of styles is truly a Cure for all Melancholy!"

It’s really pluralism which characterize best Urs Karpatz, group of polyphonies, polyrythms and polyinstruments.
This ensemble, with its extraordinary ethnomusical range, plays and sings in romanes, gypsy language, a high quality repertory, reflecting and echoing gypsy culture in Europe. The group members come from Ukraine, Hungary and Romania. VIOLINS, SMALL AND BIG, CYMBALLUM, DOUBLEBASS, DRUMS, ACCORDION, CYTHARE, FLUTE, CLARINET AND SAXO ARE JUDICIOUSLY MIXED WITH VOICES.

Urs Karpatz is far from an ordinary gypsy group.
Its story isn’t banal, and we could have discovered it through a Tony Gatlif movie...
At the beginning, there is a man, Dimitri, descendant of pirates and travellers. An eventful childhood for background... When he was 4 years old, he escaped to join the romanichel camp located near his home in order “to do waht I want”! Commotionned teenages, dreams of trips and music... Then starts his long road following gypsies through all the eastern europe countries.
One day, during one of his trip in Bosnia with nomad gyspsies bear breeders, Dimitri saves a child of the group from drowning. As a token of his gratitude, the child father gives him a trained baby bear. Gift impossible to refuse! That’s how Dimitri decided to rebirth the craft of showing bears...associated with gypsy music.
Started then the search for musicians, 8 singers from the best ones, the most originals and above all proud not to deny their Romani culture! Thus in 1993, the group Urs Karpatz were born. It’s in august 1993, during the Gypsy Nights of Saint-Raphaël that URS Karpatz performed for the firts time. It was a great success ! Very fast, the group filled out and performed about 30 times in France in 1993 associating concerts and bear shows.
At the beginning of 1995, a first album released in France, composed of extracts from concerts played in St Raphaël (1993) and in Saintes Maries de la Mer in may 1994. And here they are in december 1995 for 5 weeks in the Theater du Tourtour in Paris!
Since then, the group fills out each year with a new album : in december 1999, it’s with the releasing of "Chemins de Tsiganie" that they filled up the theatre Européen in Paris, for 3 weeks! The album "Routes et Racines" is presented during 3 exceptionnal concerts in the Bataclan hall in Paris in november 2000. The last night, they received ROMANES AWARD 2001.

"Urs Karpatz don’t care about fashions... their romani culture sweats through each one of their compositions or their interpretations. Full of vibes, lively music, gypsy music !"

Tony GATLIF, movie maker

"URS Karpatz won aver me immediately…
Indeed, what makes this group is that they really and greatly follow the work of disappeared gypsy masters. And I see that Urs Karpatz works with an unusual professionnalism for gypsies "on the road". To the antipodes of gypsy musics "for tourists", Urs Karpatz interpreters, without any concession to soppy, perfect virtuosos instrumentists, reach their aim with brio. And they join those who proove us that Nietzsche were right when saying "without music, life would be a mistake...." Long life to URS Karpatz !"

"Ah...where to begin? How about if I use one of their own quotes "Six Yanks dedicated to the preservation of fine drikin', fightin', courtin' and sailin' songs of Ireland and Scotland". That should just about say it all and yet there is much more to tell! There is so much diverse talent in these 6 musicians it's almost unfair to all the rest. They have singing/songwriting ability and are capable of playing just about any instrument known to man including bagpipes, fiddles, banjos, whistles, accordion, violin, bodhran, haggis (I have no clue what a haggis is) my favorite mandolins and of course all the usual everyday type of instruments that the rest of us struggle with. Most of all though they are just having a damn good time doing what they're doing and it shows whether in their songs or in their stage performance. This is old hat for some of them including singer Kyf Brewer who has been in the music business for a few years now.
He started back in the 80's with the Ravyns (the good old days!) then moved on to Company of Wolves and now he is again enjoying great success with Barleyjuice. Yes, there is still some time to work on some side projects for those of you who have followed his career. Keith Swanson or Swanny,another one of the founding members of the band was Pipe Major of the Loch Rannoch Pipe Band before starting up Barleyjuice a year later. I could go on and on with the individual talent in this band but the truth is if you throw these six guys in a pot, stir it round a bit, you have gold.

They have already done 3 albums starting in 2003 with "One Shilling" followed by "Another Round" and finally giving us "Six Yanks" in 2006.

So put on your kilts...don't tell me you don't own one! Alright you might have to find one...look on the Internet under "kilts" and get down to see the band. I promise you the time of your life, but after all the whiskey and beer I won't promise you that you'll remember it. Just an excuse to do it again!"

It's been 300 years since Ferenc Rákóczi, commander-in-chief of the Hungarian insurgent forces, stood at the head of the multitudes summonded to Tiszahát. The Rákóczi war of independence (1703-1711) ultimately failed, despite initial victories by the Kuruces, but left a lasting impression of the national conciousness in the music and poetry of the following centuries. One of the types of usic which the listener won't find included on this CD are the songs which have been popularized by use in gramar-school songbooks over the last one hundred years, but which may be of questionable authenticity. Our selection aims to highlight those songs which village musicians of the 20th century have made part of their everyday repertoire. By reviving these songs, we are paying our respects to the village musicians who have passed down the Kuruc songs of bygone days and the musical heritage of a time long since past.

Please To See The King is the second album by Steeleye Span, released in 1971. A substantial personnel change following their previous effort, Hark! The Village Wait, brought about a substantial change in their overall sound, including a lack of drums and the replacement of one female vocalist with a male vocalist. The band even reprised a song from their debut, "The Blacksmith", with a strikingly different arrangement making extensive use of syncopation. Re-recording songs would be a minor theme in Steeleye's output over the years, with the band eventually releasing an entire album of reprises, Present--The Very Best of Steeleye Span.

The title of the album is derived from the "Cutty Wren" ceremony. A winter wren in a cage is paraded as if it were a king. This rite was carried out on December 26, Saint Stephen's Day, and is connected to early Christmas celebrations. The song "The King", appearing on the album, addresses this, and is often performed as a Christmas carol. Steeleye returned to this subject on Live at Last with "Hunting the Wren" and on Time with the song "The Cutty Wren". The custom of Wrenboys is mostly associated with Ireland, but it has been recently revived in England.

All songs appearing on the original album are traditional. "The False Knight on the Road" is one of the Child Ballads (#3), and concerns a boy's battle of with the devil in a game of riddles. Hart and Prior had already recorded a version of the song on their album 'Summer Solstice'. "The Lark in the Morning", one of their more popular songs, has the same title as a different song about a lusty ploughboy, though there are strong similarities. This version was collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams. "Boys of Bedlam", a variant of Tom o' Bedlam", is told from the perspective of a member of a lunatic asylum. Carthy and Prior open the song by singing into the back of banjos, producing a muffled effect. The band uses the earliest printed version of the song, from Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy by Thomas d'Urfey.

Melody Maker made this their folk album of the year. Music journalist Colin Irwin in his book "In Search of Albion" describes it as one of his favourite folk-rock albums. It reached number 45 in the UK album charts, originally on B & C Records but before the year was out the rights were acquired by Mooncrest Records who re-released it the same year, with different cover art. It was issued in the US at the same time on Big Tree, when the small label was distributed by Ampex. It sold poorly and was deleted quite soon after release. Remaining copies were bought up by a couple of the 'cut-out' distributors and by that time, the band had signed with Chrysalis and the cut out original sold very well. When stock ran out, poor quality bootleg copies started to turn up in huge quantities.

Musically, this was their most electric, dense recording, with loud guitars and strong looping bass lines and no drums.

"After Wolf Krakowski's last outing, the stunning Transmigrations: Gilgul, he and his band, the Lonesome Brothers, took country music to the extreme margins of integration, where it met blues and traditional Yiddish music in a swirl of loss, longing, and celebrations of holiday foods. This time out, Krakowski branches out even further to mine the deep vein of musical cultures from all over the world -- reggae, tango -- without losing his beautifully mystifying meld of traditional Yiddish folk melodies or American country and folk-blues. Had he written his own material this way, we could have called him an original, but Krakowski's upside-down cake of musical mementos is actually the accompanying soundtrack for a bunch of radically rearranged Yiddish songs from the theater, pop, and folk musics. Composers from the last century, such as Abraham Levin, Itzak Manger, Shmuel Halkin, and others, are represented here in clashing forms where pedal-steel guitars meet steel drums from Trinidad on "Mit Farmakhte Oygin" (With Eyes Closed), or Kurt Weill's German cabaret meets the Italian tarantella and a crunchy electric guitar on "Dona Dona." In fact, the depths are so profound and rich here they defy categorization, other than "great Jewish music." This is the accumulated music of the diaspora of a people who have settled in almost every corner of the earth and who cling to their identity despite many attempts to wipe it -- and them -- out. Krakowski's recording, which was produced by Frank London of the Klezmatics, is, consciously or not, a signpost for the way to the future. He uses the past as a way of being inclusive rather than as a tool for revision. This is gorgeous music any way you slice it, moving, deep, sensual, and full of a warm humor to boot."

Intense and spiritual, full of ritual drums and driving guitar rhythms, the fourth full-length from David Eugene Edwards's Woven Hand is as terrifyingly beautiful as any of his work with 16 Horsepower. As always, he hitches Americana instruments – banjo, fiddle, hurdy-gurdy – to industrial strength percussion, in a strange hybrid that borrows as much from Joy Division as Johnny Cash.

Nearly all the songs are bleak evocations of spiritual crisis. What's interesting about Edwards is that he expresses genuine and abiding faith right alongside crushing doubt. In the album-topping "Dirty Blue," he gazes into abyss under modern life. "You're curled up warm / In your own little corner of Sodom / Did you agree to believe that this fall / Has no bottom," he says in his ghostly, possessed voice, evoking damnation and salvation against a circling throb of violin. "I've lived by the book of numbers / And I'm held together by strings," he sings later. If anyone's ever told you that accepting Jesus puts spiritual angst to rest, this is exhibit A to the contrary.

Edwards is interested in traditional music, the kinds of songs and rhythms that older societies use to express and reinforce their most deeply held values. "Slota Prow," a mesmeric cut that is partly spoken in a made-up language, is a Gnostic haze of sound, the slow reverberations of violin and nickelback harp punctured by sudden shots of drum. A galloping beat emerges from this trance-state opening, urgent and mysterious, a call to holy war.

There is respite here in the places that Edwards finds calm – family, married life and music. "Swedish Purse," with its eerie church organ and plucked banjo, has a luminous, resonant center. The cut, whose melody was drawn from a medieval song, considers Edwards' love for his wife and children. "She has made place for me / In life for those our children / Sewn into her Swedish purse / I think upon these things," he sings, and though the song is more about solace than joy, it is an island of tranquility. The other break from intensity comes just past the halfway point, in an all-instrumental track called "Bible and Bird." The cut is a ray of sunshine, bright guitar strumming and lifting chords of organ, with none of the darkness and doubt (or the drums) of the rest of the album. You can almost feel Edwards relaxing, enjoying the pure physical and mental pleasure of lovely music. It's a pause to take breath, a relief, but temporary; it leads right back into the vortex in "Dirty Blue."

There are certain kinds of music that seem to put you into direct contact with the person that made them, an unfiltered glimpse into a foreign soul. Mosaic is one of those records, overwhelming, dizzying, serious and beautiful, a spiritual experience even if you don't share Edwards' difficult faith.

Daissa is a Gypsy word meaning ‘yesterday ’and ‘tomorrow ’and thus provides the perfect title for an album that harkens to the past yet sounds thoroughly contemporary. La Kumpania Zelwer combines elements of street theater and circus alongside vibrant music from the Gypsy tradition with references to Indian,Yiddish and Breton culture. Bandleader Jean-Marc Zelwer is a multi-talented musician who has even gone so far as to create his own instruments to get a specific sound he’s after. There are no limits to Zelwer ’s fertile imagination.

"Kumpania Zelwer is the brainchild of composer and multi-multi-instrumentalist Jean-Marc Zelwer. Zelwer plays everything from nyckelharpa to santur to glass xylophone. His eight-piece band plays everything from washboard to toy piano to singing saw. This eclectic assortment of household appliances would yields a colorful pastiche of sound. Zelwer and company use these and more conventional weapons of mass construction such as accordion, cello, trumpet, violin, and tuba to create a sound that mixes elements of klezmer, cabaret, and street theater, with touches of Gypsy and Breton music for good measure. Daissa is a wild ride and one well worth taking.

The album kicks off with the dramatic traditional Yiddish song "Birobidjan" (Listen!), about an autonomous Jewish region of the Soviet Union founded by Stalin. The optimistic lyrics belie the dire minor key of the melody. Vocalist Francesca Lattuada's powerful alto gives the piece the theatricality it deserves. Another highlight is the loopy instrumental "C'est pas tour les jours Shabbat," with its circus-like oom-pah tuba and clashing tonalities on piano, clarinet, and trumpet. The vaguely nightmarish "Balagan" (Listen!) features glass bottle xylophone and trumpet with a gouache of spooky organ and altered voices in the background. Particularly beautiful is the "Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs)," with its droning violin and santour accompaniment. "Polvere" a Corsican cante jondo (usually performed a cappella) gets a chamber music treatment with violin, cello, and nyckelharpa.

Zelwer has created street shows using dozens of musicians and has made a career of writing music for the stage. The theatre that is in his blood translates quite successfully to disc. He uses the sounds at his disposal as an impressionist painter might have used various brush strokes and combinations of color. The result is a richly textured canvas with all of the emotional impact of the best art."

Egy Kiss Erzsi Zene (Erzsi Kiss Music) makes a fusion of existing and fictitious languages; bridges are built between well-known and imaginary continents. This music is a flow of never-ending improvisations; lyrics without lyrics, free associations are the basis of the diversity of their music which includes elements of dark ballads, chansons, rock of the '70s. In brief: the "ethno-rock" cavalcade. The band was formed in 1996. Since then they have great success, in Europe they were invited to many international festivals and clubs. Initially the vocal arrangements were in focus, which by now has been balanced with instrumental arrangements interpreted by the jazz musicians of Erzsi Kiss. It is a jubilant music that the band creates with a virtual world: many instants and emotions.

Described as having an eclectic blend of ethnic musical influences Erzsi Kiss and her band have an enthusiastic following in their Hungary. It can only be a matter of time before this spreads beyond that country's borders.

"The music can be a little bluesy, a little jazzy, a little Serbian, a little Russian or Arabic, we can play and travel as much as we want, because we have no language restrictions. Human imagination and musicality are the only things that can limit us."

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Shahen-Shah-e-Q_awwali (The Brightest Star in Qawwali) is a title reserved for the leading voice and spirit of qawwali, the devotional music of Sufi Islam. No other term better describes the late Qawwali master.

There are great singers, and then there are those few voices that transcend time. The late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan could not only transcend time, but also language and religion. There was magic when he opened his mouth, a sense of holy ecstasy that was exciting and emotional. It wasn’t uncommon even for Western listeners, who didn’t understand a word he was singing or follow his Sufi traditions, to be moved to tears upon hearing him.

Ali Khan, who died in 1997 at the age of 48, was a Qawwali, a singer of devotional music of the Sufi sect of Islam. Trained by his father, the master singer Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, he kept up a 600-year family tradition by taking over leadership of the “party” (the general term for a Qawwali group, comprising singer, harmonium and tablas) in 1971, following recurring dreams that he was singing at the Muslim shrine of Hazratja Khawaja Moid-Ud-Din Christie in Ajmer, India (which he would eventually do).

In his improvisations, his voice would soar skyward to heaven, carrying his audience with him. While the core of his work and his life was the Sufi texts, the mystic holy poetry of the spirit, Ali Khan didn’t limit himself to that in his career. He was happy to sing the love poems known as ghazals, to perform vocal exercises, and even lend his talents to Bollywood and Hollywood, to range into ambient and dance music. But none of it was at the expense of his soul.

Throughout the ’70s and early ’80s he released literally hundreds of cassettes—trying to make order of his entire discography would be a nightmare—and his reputation grew, not only in his native Pakistan, but also internationally. The year 1985 proved to be the turning point for him, as he appeared not only at the WOMAD festival in England, but also had his performances in France recorded for an epic five-CD set that perfectly illustrated the qualities of his art. The songs stretched out, allowing Ali Khan to show his genius for extemporization, turning a sound, word or phrase over and over, examining it, flying with it, before releasing it and moving to another, using them all as enlightenment for the soul, a prayer and devotion. At his best, and his best seemed to occur often, he was like a bird, swooping and rising, his voice as free as the sky.

After Paris, the momentum gathered. He signed with Real World Records, which meant that for the first time his records would have high-profile international distribution, and released Shahen Shah, whose title came from his nickname. It wasn’t hardcore Ali Khan, but lighter and more melodic, a disc that seduced those who hadn’t heard him before.

“..you don’t need to tell about Russiato the foreign people. It’ll better to themto listen to the cd of the Pokrovsky Ensemble.”Anton Batagov

The Dmitry Pokrovsky Ensemble was founded by prominest musician, scientist and researcher of Russian national culture Dmitry Pokrovsky(1944-1996) in Moscow in 1973 as a «living laboratory» for the study of different Russian folk traditions.

The Ensemble was the first group of professional musicians who performed the folk music in authentic village styles at the academic scene. To learn the essence of the village music, Ensemble's members have traveled the lenght and breadth of rural Russia, documenting and studying to perform themselves the music traditions they encountered. The special vocal school of Ensemble based on various styles of traditional Russian singing is absolutely unique.

It is difficult to find now another collective of singers that can conquer the audience with their original interpretation of classic and avant-garde musical compositions, having a large repertoire of Russian village music of different traditions and styles.

The variety of the Ensemble’s interests is seen in their constant collaboration with different musicians, contemporary composers, theatrical directors and filmmakers..

The Ensemble had been performing modern music, working together with many modern composers and at the same time having classical compositions in its repertoire. Having introduced western audiences to Russian traditional and modern music, the Ensemble has become a figure of world music culture.

01. Epic Song
02. Birch Tree on the Sea
03. Where Have You Been You
04. Limerick
05. 116TH Psalm of King David
06. Girls Are Walking
07. Gusly
08. Green Grass
09. Prayer of a Young Man
10. Down in Kiev
11. Fog
12. Friends Horsemen
13. Sunset
14. Vargan
15. Soft Light
16. First Commandment

Angry folk-country-punk-blues, whatever, banjo wielding showman Eller sings dark and ageless tunes. An excellent and highly intriguing singer/songwriter who is based in New York City, Curtis Eller has successfully brought a variety of influences to his unorthodox folk-rock vision. The banjo-playing Eller’s work has an old-time feel, drawing on an abundance of direct or indirect influences from the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s (including country singer Jimmie Rodgers, cowboy icon Gene Autry, and Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson). But Eller’s material is far from a carbon copy of music from that era — there is plenty of rock bite and attitude in his rootsy work, which also contains elements of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and the ballsy outlaw country of Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. Eller, consciously or unconsciously, reminds listeners what Dylan, Cash, Son House, Pete Seeger, and Haggard have in common — they are all known for being effective storytellers, and storytelling is where Eller himself shines.

The Queens resident is clearly fascinated by American history; he has written about the American Civil War, silent film star Buster Keaton (who he considers a strong influence), and aviatrix Amelia Earhart. Quite often, Eller’s subject matter can be dark; “Alaska” is about a mining disaster, and “The Execution of Black Diamond” was inspired by a bizarre 1929 incident in which a circus elephant was paraded through the streets of a small Texas town and “executed” (the mayor took the first shot) after attacking and killing a local woman. Circuses, in fact, are a major interest of Eller, who studied juggling when he was a kid and calls his band Curtis Eller’s American Circus. Eller has often said that his goal as a performer is to “capture the spirit of the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944,” a tragedy that cost 167 people their lives and became the worst disaster in the Connecticut city’s history.

A circus inferno is a bizarre way to measure artistic or creative success, but then, Eller’s eccentricity is part of what makes his work so interesting. A website on the history of Hartford has posted the lyrics to “Hartford, CT,” an Eller song describing the World War II-era tragedy. Another unusual thing about Eller is the way he plays the banjo, his primary instrument. Instead of playing it in an exuberant, bluegrass-like fashion, Eller often makes the banjo sound moody, haunting, and dark — in Eller’s hands, the banjo becomes the perfect instrument for songs about mining disasters and circus tragedies.

Originally from Detroit, MI, Eller listened to a variety of music when he was growing up in the Motor City — everyone from Son House to Iggy Pop. After leaving Detroit, he spent some time in North Carolina, where he was the musical director for a local theater troupe. But Eller grew disenchanted with the theater and moved to New York City (where he made music his primary focus). His third album, Wirewalkers & Assassins, continues to explore and expand upon the themes and influences (both musically and lyrically) from his previous work. Overall, the music on the album is a little fuller and darker than his previous albums.

Umalali is not a group name, but the Garifuna word for voice. The Garifuna are descendents of African slaves who escaped from a massive shipwreck in 1635. They intermarried with Carib and Arawak Indians and evolved their own culture over the centuries. The were never conquered by the slave masters, but have been a marginalized minority for years, with a population centered in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Belize. The United Nations UNESCO arm recognizes their music and culture as a threatened one, part of humanity's intangible treasures. The Garifuna Women's Project is a collection of traditional and composed songs by various well-regarded Garifuna female elders and youngsters. Garifuna music has elements of African, Caribbean, and Native American music, in particular the soca of Trinidad, the reggae of Jamaica, and the rhythms of Cuba. To North American ears the sounds are both strangely familiar and slightly alien, blending many common elements in a unique way. The album was produced by Ivan Duran, the white Belizian who started Stonetree Records to document the music of the Garifuna.

The songs are traditional, even those that are newly composed, because the Garifuna see music as an ongoing process of creation. Since it's a way to convey cultural knowledge and communicate with the ancestors, songs are not owned, although everyone knows who composed the most popular tunes. Duran and the backing musicians made no attempt to keep the music traditional, since the Garifuna, like seemingly everyone else in the world, are tech-savvy and own computers and cell phones. The album is best listened to as a single piece of music - a ceremony, if you will - but individual performers and arrangements do stand out.

"Barübana Yagien" sounds like a combination of calypso and Congolese rhumba, while Silvia Blanco's singing calls to mind the sound of Mali's Oumou Sangare. The driving bass drums and sinuous electric guitar keep the tune moving at a rapid pace. "Hatie," by Sarita Martinez, is the tale of the hurricane that devastated Central America in 1961. It lays spaghetti Western guitar twang on top of a rolling punta rock backbeat complemented by strong call-and-response vocals. Marcela Torres has a forceful alto that stands up to the bass drums that sound like the throbbing heart of West Africa on "Anaha Ya." Sofia Blanco, one of the album's strongest vocalists, and Silvia's mom, sings lead on "Nibari" and "Yündüya Weyu." The first is a greeting to a new grandson and again sounds like the women's vocal music of Mali. Blanco's keening vocals are given minimal accompaniment by drums and guitar to preserve their primal power. "Yündüya Weyu" is more uptempo, with hints of Cuba, West Africa, and Brazil in its paranda rhythm. "Lirun Biganute" is Julia Lewis' lament for her murdered son accompanied only by a treble-heavy electric guitar that sounds oddly like an autoharp.

Garifuna women have been given the task of bearing their culture on to future generations.
By combining traditional vocals with modern arrangements, Duran and the Garifuna Women's Project singers hope to attract young people and world music lovers to this vital, irreplaceable culture.

Funky and fiery family brass band from Ukraine, playing the wild and sweet wedding music of Podolia, singing some heart-rending a capella songs. Fresh, deeply rooted, breathtaking.
Ukrainian musicians Konsonans Retro’s acclaimed debut CD A Podolian Affair brings back to life the Jewish Brass Band music of the area through the collaboration between the musicians of the local Baranovsky family and Berlin-based clarinettist Christian Dawid.

Odessa was the only city in which Jews were not governed by a rabbinical council, which meant that they were free to evolve into a secular, civil society which meant tavern-going and music-making. The Ukraine’s large Jewish population influenced the brass band music of that area. The Baranovsky brothers and their cousins play trumpets, accordion, trombone and barabon in the band, having been trained by their elders, Moise and Maria Baranovsky. Vasyl Baranovsky started playing in his father’s orchestra at the age of four, so he remembers many old pieces which are now perhaps only known to him. Christian Dawid, who arranged all the pieces, and London-based drummer Guy Schalom, successfully meld a Western sensibility on to the Baranovskys’ traditionalism.

"On this recording, Dawid sits in on woodwinds, and Britain's Guy Schalom joins in on drums, complementing the band's usual baraban. The result is a Podolian Dirty Dozen Brass Band—lively, exciting, wonderful harmonies, even wonderful vocal harmonies on slipped-in Ukrainian tunes like "limonchiki" (part of the "Freylekh No. 5 medley") and "Oy u hayu pri Danuy. The album closes with a single voice singing a Ukrainian love song, accompanied only by accordion, and then breaking into two voices and what sounds like an entirely different song—a bonus celebration of human voice transcending even the exuberance of the full Konsonans Retro.

The cross-fusion is still happily in progress. Gennadiy Fomin, from Kharkov klezmer, joins with Dawid band in a local "Podilska". Some of the tunes are strikingly unfamiliar. The Moldavskiy Dans (the liner notes say that "dans" is the local term for what Jewish musicians would traditionally call a "zhok" or "hora") is a lovely waltz-ish number. The "Niviy Sher" would seem more familiar to denizens of a balkan dance night than an American Jewish wedding, and the "Khasitsky Freylekhs" is a sweet-sounding Hasidic (?) Freylekhs. Their brassy Hasidic "Shabes Nign" is very different from the arrangements with which I am familiar, but is still unmistakably "Shabes Nign." As noted by the reviewer on the Blog in Dm, Podolia is the birthplace of Hasidism, so it is wonderful to hear local versions of these songs, as well as to reconnect with the source, so to speak.

This is the most exciting brass band with a Jewish repertoire since, well, probably since Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars or the Panorama Jazz Band. It's also a funny reminder. Here in the States, we think it interesting and a bit normal that our friends play here in a bluegrass band, there in a Celtic band, and over there in a klezmer ensemble, cleverly keeping the repertoire's mostly separate. In Konsonans Retro we see one band with a repertoire spanning all of Eastern Europe's cultures, playing one or the other as appropriate, and all as smoothly and perfectly as the other. What a wonderful discovery."

Formed in 1995, Söndörgő play Yugoslav (Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian) Bulgarian and Greek folk music. The members of the band are young people, being the sons of members of the Vujicsics ensemble.
Typically, much of this music is played on the 'tambura', which is a musical relative of the lute. The tambura comes in various sizes and is usually played at a ferocious pace.
After playing small but regular gigs, it wasn’t long before they were playing in more serious venues, and have performed together with the Vujicsics Ensemble and Márta Sebestyén.

Their musical interest turned towards southern Slavic folk music and the archaic tradition strata of the Balkans. Their repertiore consists mainly of Serb and Croat tunes played in Hungary.Relationship between the members of the ensemble dates back to the elementary and secondary school years. Among others, it was the example of the Vujicsics Ensemble that contributed to the development of their approach of music. Members of the Söndörgő Ensemble study the collections of great folk music researchers like Béla Bartók or Tihamér Vujicsics, as well as whatever still exists of Serb and Croat folk music. Their style is built on that of tambure bands. On occasions, there appear the accordion , the flut, the clarinet as well as the characteristic musical instruments of the folk music of the Balkans, such as the kaval, the gajade, the tarabuka, the tapan, the litárka. Apart from performing in Hungary as well as abroad, their (folk) dance house programmes are also very popular.

The names of Nikola Parov and Ágnes Herczku should not be introduced as their common work started 10 years ago and the several edited CDs prove that their work hasn’t lost interest and lead to new ways. Three years ago their solo CD entitled ‘I’ve got a lover’ showed that the folk songs are capable to revive in new conditions. Nikola Parov has selected the music in this CD from his existing and ever improving repertoire. It was recorded when the songs were fully developed and proved timeless based on the audience’s feedback. Thus, the Hungarian version of a composition of Richard Thompson is also on the CD, in addition to folk songs from the Balkan, Greece and Hungary.
An interesting feature is the song ‘To the woman’. As a difference from the other songs, the singer is the composer himself: Nikola Parov. The composition has been in the drawer for 2-3 years waiting for a male singer. Finally it was the song that has made the decision: it showed that it’s the composer who can sing it more honestly.

Brown Bird is an original 3 piece band which draws influence from Alt.Country, Blues and Eastern European musics. Brown Bird began over five years ago as the brain child of songwriter David Lamb and has developed into a miniature orchestra of harmonized voices and instruments carrying Lamb’s haunting lyrics on surging waves of Appalachian, gypsy, and shanty music. The group hails from Rhode Island and pulls from the talents of each member to create a diverse folk music that swells into high-spirited, foot-stomping madness.

Brown Bird’s history starts when David Lamb returned to New England after a stint of unemployment in Seattle, bringing with him the first seedlings of a catalog of dark introspective songs. He settled in Portland Maine and Brown Bird crystallized with the addition of Lamb’s close friends Jeremy (voice, accordion, banjo) and Jerusha Robinson (voice, cello). Together they formed the stormy, ‘dark-americana’ sound that would identify the band for much of its earlier years.

As a trio, Brown Bird self released two albums: ‘Tautology’ (2006), and ‘Such Unrest’ (2007). Their third record “The Bottom of the Sea” found its home on the Portland Maine based label Peapod Records. Following its release in 2008, Lamb embarked on an extensive solo tour throughout the U.S. in support of the album.

While touring, Lamb met Morganeve Swain and Mike Samos two Rhode Islanders who would join him for several shows on the road and later become full members of Brown Bird.

French world-music band Lo’Jo’s seventh studio album is a sea voyage across time and space. Cosmophono opens with a brief invocation from singer Nadia Nid el Mourid, then a loping drumbeat and simplest of phrases on piano hoist the rhythmic mast of “Petit Courage”, so that lead singer and keyboardist Denis Péan can sail from the bordellos of Marseille to tropical bars.

Lo’Jo fuses language and sound into a savvy synthesis of cultural influences from Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Caribbean. Péan’s throaty voice recalls the rougher French chansonniers of the ’50s and ’60s. His lyrics, however, suggest the earlier influence of the legendary poet Arthur Rimbaud. Péan weaves rich, at times surrealistic images and the band creates soundscapes full of colour, emotion, light and shadows. The songs, all credited to Péan and Lo’Jo, draw on cabaret, circus, rock, and folk traditions. Listening to Lo’Jo is like being in Rimbaud’s drunken boat, riding the ocean swell after one more slug of absinthe.

Willard Grant Conspiracy is a Boston ensemble led by vocalist Robert Fisher and guitarist Paul Austin. With a revolving line-up, they play elegant, evocative and melancholy country music that is a hybrid of Lambchop and Walkabouts. Fisher populates that sonic plateau with bleak, haunting stories of heartache and loss. Even the frequently religious tones seem more concerned with the absence of god than with his glory.

During the fall of 1999 the Willard Grant Conspiracy toured through 15 european countries as support for the Walkabouts. The tour ended in Slovenia and one of the last shows was recorded by Radio Slovenia.

The quartett begins the show with their vocals - acoustic guitar - electric guitar - violin line-up and celebrates four moody songs (Another Lonely Night, Evening Mass, Catnap In The Boom Boom Room and Morning Is The End Of The Day) before they are joined by Walkabouts drummer Terri Moeller for the "Ballad Of John Parker". More Walkabouts are added to the line-up and "How To Get To Heaven" gets a more than impressive full electric treatment. This is followed by the dark and quiet "The Work Song" (with extra backing vocals) and the grand finale almost 8 minutes of "The Visitor". The song culminates in a Velvet Underground-style freak out before singer Robert Fisher brings it home with his dark and brooding voice.
Just marvellous!

1. Another Lonely Night
2. Evening Mass
3. Catnap In The Boom Boom Room
4. Morning Is The End Of The Day
5. Ballad Of John Parker
6. How To Get To Heaven
7. The Work Song
8. The Visitor

Bolot and Nohon are remarkable singers from the Altai Autonomous Republic, Russia.
For many years, this area was under the control of the Soviet Union, but with the breakup of the USSR, it became an independent republic within the Russian Federation. Altai's near neighbors include Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Tuva, the latter probably being most famous among world music aficionados for its throat-singing.

Uch Sumer is an album of songs from Altai, and throat-singing is front and center here. The liner notes define no fewer than four different styles of throat-singing, from the deep growl of karkiraa to the high whistling tone of sikit. When not throat-singing, the vocalists sing in a declamatory style.

The singers are Bolot Bayrishev and Nohon Shumarov, who accompany themselves on a variety of traditional instruments. These instruments include two lute-like instruments, a mouth-harp and a variety of wind instruments, some intended to lure wild deer.

Uch Sumer maybe is a lot of Altai music for the casual listener; it lasts over an hour and some individual tracks are almost 10 minutes long. For someone interested in the music of central Asia, however, this is a feast. The variety of sounds the singers produce is staggering, and what is perhaps more impressive is that a vocal technique that seems like a novelty to many westerners can produce such listenable songs.
The whole album is beautiful. Highly recommended.

The Dreadnoughts are Vancouver's biggest, baddest, drunkest, punkest celtic band. One part roaring sea shanty, one part haunting Irish melody, and a solid chaser of gut-crunching street punk.
The Dreadnoughts: One part roaring sea shanty, one part haunting Irish melody, and a solid chaser of gut-crunching street punk. This ragtag group of drunken misfits stays true to the ancient ballads and bawlers that once drove sailors around the world, all the while smashing out modern punk with a fury and intensity that is unmatched in their home city of Vancouver, BC.

Formed in 2006 over pints of cheap beer at East Vancouver’s notoriously violent Ivanhoe Hotel, the Dreadnoughts cut their teeth in the roughest dive bars in the city. They started by opening for (and earning the praise of) celtic-punk grandfathers The Real MacKenzies, and since then have never looked back. Hauling a fiddle, an accordion, a mandolin, a tin whistle, guitars and drums into every venue that would have them, they quickly became known for their powerful, chaotic live performances. In three short years they have slowly but surely joined the ranks of Vancouver’s punk rock heroes.

The Dreadnoughts are nothing new to all of us in the Celtic Rock… but to many this band has remained underground until we started getting in requests for their music lately here from around the world. “Legends Never Die” is The Dreadnoughts first release, but this is not a CD made by amateurs… these musicians are by far more talented than some of their peers and other media give them credit for. To grasp the sound of this diverse group could be summed up as a mixture of Great Big Sea, Circle J, Finn’s Fury, Blaggards, and even some Flogging Molly mixed in between. “Legends Never Die” could have been in our Top CDs of the year for 2007… if only just they would have got it to us by then. Pick this one up today if you are looking for a little Sea Shanty, Celtic Trad Jigs, Celtic ROCK, and a little punk added to the mix. This is the next Celtic Rock band to watch for years to come! Tracks of interest: “Fire Marshall Willy”, “Mary the One Eyed Prostitute….”, “Sons of Murphy”, and “Roll the Woodpile Down”.

The songs on Voices on The Eastern Wind were gathered from a wide variety of sources including ethnographic recordings collected by KITKA members while doing field research in Eastern Europe, transcriptions of recordings made by Eastern European folk artists and ensembles, modern Balkan composers' interpretations of folk melodies and original compositions and arrangements by Director Bon Brown.

These "Angels of the Steppes" bring to life rich and beautiful songs of Bulgaria, Macedonia, Russia, and the Ukraine. The women of Kitka (Keet-kuh) are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, yet come from varied ethnic backgrounds. The spirit and beauty with which they sing transports you to the villages of older cultures and traditions with a feeling of the immediacy and drama of life uncomplicated by faxes and cellular phones. They sing of rivers and enchanted forests; of rushing to meet your sweetheart at the village working-bee; of helping a woman decide between the marriage proposals of a swineherd and an ox-cart driver. The ten singers use vocals almost exclusively; a gaida (Bulgarian bagpipe) is used on one cut; cello and cymbalom on another, and a third track has the accent of dumbek. Excellent in arrangement and harmony, Voices on the Eastern Wind will delight fans of all vocal traditions.

Kalyi Jag, Black Fire in English, play authentic Gypsy music and have been doing so for almost 20 years. They are recognised as one of the foremost Gypsy folk ensembles in Eastern Europe today. The instruments they use are guitar, jug, board and oral improvisations.
Traditional Gypsy music sung in Gypsy and Hungarian language.
Originally released in 1994.

01. Where I Come and Go - Slow song from Szatmár County
02. The Slim Woman is Clever - Rolled song from North-Eastern Hungary
03. Who Love Each Other - Rolled song
04. I am Told to Be - Slow song
05. Once I Saw a Beautiful Woman - Rolled song
06. Beds Made by Whole World - Oral bass improvisations with accompanying words
07. The Jilted Husband - Ballad
08. Ketri, Ketri - Dance song in Balcan Gypsy style
09. Luma Maj - Ballad in Russian Gypsy style
10. Flowery Ditch - Slow song from Lovár
11. The Heart - Whole Love - Dance song
12. Rolled Song of "Filtus" - Rolled song from Baks
13. Luck For You - Rolled song from North-Eastern Hungary
14. My Moustache Stands Out - Stick dance tune
15. The Merriness - Rolled song
16. The lads of Szatmár County - Selection of Gypsy dance tunes from Szatmár County

"...The continuous interaction of the peoples living in the region created a melodic world of exceptional ríchness, in whose musical forms, ranging from simple archaic tunes to classical ones, the constant renewal of human life is being cast in sound..."

Béla Bartók (On Eastern European Folk Music, 1942)

The musical pieces on this CD are all traditional Csángó (a Hungarian minority in Romania) tunes from Moldva. The dance tunes are played by István László Legedi (50 years old, carpenter) on the Furulya (wooden whistle with six holes), the Kaval (long wooden whistle with five holes) and the Tilinkó (wooden whistle without holes). The songs are sung by Erzsébet Bálint (56 years old, housewife). Both are peasant musicians, that is they have learned the traditional melodies and lyrics, which were passed down from generation to generation, from their parents.

Most of the tunes are dances, accompanied with the Koboz (special kind flute with four or five pairs of strings, today to be found in this area only), Jew's harp and a drum, but lyrical instrumental and vocal tunes can also be heard. This recording is part of a series of musical editions (cassettes and sheet music) on Hungarian folk music from Moldva.

The Zurgó Band was founded by young musicians from Budapest. They would like to preserve and pass on this ancient music in an urban context. The tunes played by the band were added to show the contrast between the authentic and the urban interpretation.

Ethno-folk from Rybinsk, from around the Volga river.
"Folk-project "Raznotravie and Mitya Kuznetsov" from Rybinsk of Yaroslavl region, Russia. It is one of a few musical projects, which brightly represent Russia in the direction of world music. As the basis of creation "Raznotravie and Mitya Kuznetsov" is assumed ancient Slavic poetics, melodics and musical traditions of the different countries of the world. The poetic and musical style speaks about the uniqueness of the project, which is characteristic precisely for the Rybinsk Volga river Region and Poshekhonia , whence by birth almost all musicians of group. Poshekhonia is a big part of land to the north from central region of Russia with the wild woods, fields of various herbs and lost villiages. Many russian people still shure that Poshekhonia is unexisted and mistical place. The name "Raznotravie" takes it roots in the ambiance of nature of this land which stores the memories about ancient time in every wood, in every herb. That is why the name could be translated as "Manifold Herbs". But in russian it brings very bright, wild, and ancient image in one word. The history of the project:
The group "Raznotravie" was founded in 1997. In summer of 1997 group recorded the first concert program "Seven". In January 2000 "Raznotravie" invited multiinstrumentalist and performer of folk music Mitya Kuznetsov (known by group "Sedmaya Voda") to be producer and arranger of the new studio album. Close collaboration made it possible to find conceptually new sounding for the group "Raznotravie" and record album "Katorga". After recording the album Mitya Kuznetsov offered to combine songs of "Raznotravie" and his own solo programm. The result of joint operation is the adapted to stage show-project, which combined in itself the original creation "Raznotravie" and ancient russian folk songs performed by Mitya Kuznetsov and presented in his solo album "Pigeon book".

Get ready for a whole new approach to Masada music! Expressive and passionate, Basya Schecter, Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, Malika Zarra and Sofia Rei Koutsovitis are four of the most creative vocalists around. Each the leader of a dynamic band of their own, they come together here in an intimate a cappella setting to interpret eleven songs from Zorn's remarkable Book of Angels. With lyrics in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, French and Arabic drawn from Rumi, Fernando Pessoa, The Hebrew Bible and more, the Masada vocal project is perhaps the most hauntingly beautiful installments in the entire Angels series. Dynamic and evocative New Jewish Music from four powerful women vocalists!

In December 1970, on the Feast of Saint Jean, three young men of that first name performed together at a folk festival in Brittany, a province in Western-most France. The audience was dazzled by their energetic treatment of Breton and other Celtic styles and knack for close-harmony singing. Jean Chocun, Jean-Louis Jossic and Jean-Paul Corbineau were dubbed Tri Yann An Naoned ("Three Jeans From Nantes" in Breton) and quickly became regional favorites. As time went on, Tri Yann morphed from an all-acoustic trio into an eight-piece ensemble capable of integrating unplugged traditions, medieval balladry and rollicking folk-rock into a empowering statement of Breton pride.

The band's homeland, Brittany (Bretagne in French, Breizh in Breton), is one of the original six Celtic nations. Boasting a magnificent coastline and a long and colorful maritime history, Brittany has been host to a significant Celtic presence as far back as the 5th century. The natives have been actively seeking to secede from France since 1532, when their last autonomously ruling duchess married a French king. But modern Bretons, despite centuries of repression, have successfully reclaimed their native tongue and brought ancient folkways more-or-less intact into the present. The worldwide '70s folk revival that galvanized musicians in England, the U.S.A. and Ireland also made major landfall here, sending droves of young song collectors fanning out into the countryside, searching for living repositories of their heritage. Thanks to harpist Alan Stivell and politically galvanized poet-singer Giles Servat, along with Tri Yann and other pioneering bands, fest-noz (night festival) dances, which are descended from harvest celebrations, have once again become commonplace while several record labels have assembled extensive catalogues of local music. A profound sense of shared identity has been aroused and the Breton people are a force to be reckoned with.

Why Tri Yann has such a low profile outside of Brittany and the rest of France, where the group has long since garnered a devoted following, remains a mystery. The band's sound, which fuses Breton bagpipes and bombardes (a member of the oboe/shawm family) and medieval instruments onto a framework of powerhouse rock, is remarkably accessible. Plus, the group's spectacularly staged-and-costumed concerts routinely fill entire stadiums while its gold-and platinum-selling albums provide a timeline for the development of Breton music over more than three decades. Suite Gallaise (1974), which explores songs from the three bandleaders' native Pays Gallo where French is commonly spoken, is a lively example of the group's early acoustic sound, although some tracks are already leaning toward folk-rock. An Heol a Zo Glaz (The Sun Is Green, 1981) is a flawless concept work, ranging from a militantly pacifist ecological cantata sung entirely in Breton to "Si Mort a Mors," an Irish-inspired ballad about the last Duchess of Brittany that is one of the band's signature pieces. Cafe du Bon Coin (1983) draws heavily on Irish material while Portraits (1995) constitutes a musical gallery of personalities the band is intrigued by, from ancient times to the present.